Thursday, 15 May 2014

Cuckoo Song (Part Deax) and more.

Cuckoo Song

It's now out and though I may, for a brief spell, come across as Frances Hardinge's unpaid publicist I hope it does really, really well. Will their be a better YA novel published this year? Nah! Go buy it and then take the day off to read it. There are excellent reviews at The Book Smugglers and at things mean a lot and others cropping up all over the place. Special thanks to Ana because my review of Cuckoo Song is my most-read post so far. Frances has done a blog tour - all the details are up at her website here. It's well worth searching out the links for all kinds of fascinating insights. Reviews There's a review of Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History at Strange Horizons - looks like a must-read.Other stuff Please try to read Maureen Kincaid Speller's fine essay, TheyAre Not Ghosts: On the Representation of the Indigenous Peoples of North America in Science Fiction & Fantasy. And on Twitter it's well worth keeping track of #readingwomen2014. I already tend to read more books written by women anyway but actually keeping track is interesting. I'm already ahead of the game and reading the Bailey's shortlist will help even more.

Christopher Priest has done a series of Q&As – he links
to them on his website here

There are so many
literary prizes these days to keep track of, but the Miles Franklin award looks
to have some interesting works this year. The Guardian link is here.

It’s easy to feel
a little apocalyptic about the world right now. You could always just about
convince yourself that world leaders wouldn’t blow us all up with nuclear
weapons but it’s hard to believe that accelerating climate change mixed with astounding
levels of corruption and inequality mixed with the inexorable march of free
market capitalism aren’t going to make the world much, much worse fairly soon –
and it’s bad enough for billions of people already. Hopefully this is something
that will increasingly impact on the content and structure of literary fiction.
This
post by Alison Flood entitled ‘Which
books will survive rising sea levels?’ is worth a read.

Thanks to Roger at Beccon Publications for sorting me out with a copy of Paul Kincaid's Call and Response and a PDF of What we do when we read Science Fiction. Also I've finally found the Notes from Coode Street Podcast - the most recent is with Joe Abercrombie and I've also listened to the ones featuring Nicola Grifith and M John Harrison. It's a brilliant resource - entertaining, erudite and sharp.